Mar 8 - CAIRO (Reuters) - Three Arab countries have banned the Hollywood film "Noah" on religious grounds even before its worldwide premiere and several others are expected to follow suit, a representative of Paramount Pictures told Reuters on Saturday.

Catholic Church

Mar 6 – (Opinion: Joyce Gannon) Jorge Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires, was widely considered to be the runner-up in 2005 when Pope Benedict XVI was elected to lead the Catholic Church. But he didn't hang around the Vatican and plot a political strategy that would eventually lead to him becoming Benedict's successor.

Mar 9 - Pope Francis named top laymen from the worlds of finance and economics on Saturday to a new Vatican Council for the Economy, intended to improve scrutiny of the Holy See's scandal-plagued accounts.

Islam

Mar 7 - Kuala Lumpur (AFP) - Malaysia has banned a translation of an Ultraman comic book after it referred to the popular Japanese superhero as "Allah", authorities said Friday, during an ongoing row over use of the word by non-Muslims.

Mar 9 - About two dozen Iraqi women have demonstrated in Baghdad against a draft law approved by the Iraqi cabinet that would permit the marriage of nine-year-old girls and automatically give child custody to fathers.

Judaism

Mar 3 - Jerusalem: Hundreds of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews blocked the main entrance to Jerusalem in a mammoth prayer vigil to protest plans to draft thousands of their young men for military service.

Religious Violence

Mar 5 - Beijing (AFP) - Attackers who launched a brutal mass knifing at a Chinese train station acted in desperation after a failed attempt to leave the country and become jihadists overseas, a Chinese official was Wednesday quoted as saying.

Mar 7 - UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Most Muslims have been driven out of the western half of conflict-torn Central African Republic, where thousands of civilians risk of being killed "right before our eyes," the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said on Thursday.

Mar 8 - Beijing (AFP) - China expressed anger Friday over the Dalai Lama's meeting with US congressional leaders, urging Washington to "stop conniving" with the man it brands a separatist working under the "cloak of religion".

Mar 6 - AN Australian missionary detained in North Korea for trying to spread Christianity says he was interrogated for four hours a day and kept under 24-hour guard during his gruelling 13-day investigation.